This version contains BOTH introductions by Burton H. Wolfe, as well as the introductions by Michael A. Aquino and Peter H. Gilmore. There are also a collection of other writings by LaVey at the end as an appendix.

I really enjoy having this one. With essays compiled from various sources, it gives a more in depth study into LaVey's creation. I often wonder why the CoS had not thought of it first. With the addition of such work as Pentagonal Revisionism, the 9 sins and Enochian Pronunciation, it seems invaluable to the newly awakened Satanist.

There's pretty much any book you want online these days, all you have to do is exercise diligence in your search. Impossible for the copyright folks to keep up, for every link or .pdf removed, nine more spring up. I've found every book LaVey has written, tangibly and digitally.

A great find Meq.

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Without innate intelligence civilization would never have been created. When intelligence declines..

Yes, I feel that file is more valuable than actually buying the copy of the Satanic Bible because of the added information.

The CoS would never do this with the book though since alot of the material is written by people in the Temple of Set. Interestingly enough almost all intelligent analysis of the Satanic Bible has come from the ToS rather than from the CoS.

And I say that as a person who philosophically is probably more close to the CoS side of things than the ToS but I feel that the second has way more value in regards to actually achieving and producing things. Especially in regards to its own religion and interpretations of other philosophies closely related to them.

Yes, I feel that file is more valuable than actually buying the copy of the Satanic Bible because of the added information.

The CoS would never do this with the book though since alot of the material is written by people in the Temple of Set. Interestingly enough almost all intelligent analysis of the Satanic Bible has come from the ToS rather than from the CoS.

And I say that as a person who philosophically is probably more close to the CoS side of things than the ToS but I feel that the second has way more value in regards to actually achieving and producing things. Especially in regards to its own religion and interpretations of other philosophies closely related to them.

Aha! A nice find, indeed, Meq! I enjoy adding to my "digital library" at every opportunity; and for some reason, collecting various digital versions of The Satanic Bible has become something of a hobby of mine. Very nice.

TheInsane: I've always had a slight chuckle at the fact that, as you said, "almost all intelligent analysis of the Church of Satan has come from the Temple of Set."

I've always had a slight chuckle at the fact that, as you said, "almost all intelligent analysis of the Church of Satan has come from the Temple of Set."

I'd agree that many Setians [and not just those who are C/S alumni] have had some interesting things to say about the SB, but there have been some good insights by others too, including those with no involvement in either institution.

While there is a "backstory" to the SB, as detailed in my Church of Satan ebook, and summarized in my Amazon review ...

Originally Posted By: M.A.

In 1969, three years after Anton LaVey had started the Church of Satan in San Francisco, Avon Books invited him to submit a manuscript about it for publication. Anton had available a number of diatribes on various social/historical topics, as well as basic instructions on how to perform personal magical rituals, previously distributed to Church members on mimeographed handouts. This material was not enough to fill up a paperback, however, so Anton added an additional diatribe - an extract from an obscure old political tract Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard - and the Enochian Keys from Aleister Crowley's Equinox (modified with Anton's own "Satanic" interpretation). The Redbeard extract became the "Book of Satan", Anton's diatribes the "Book of Lucifer", the ritual instructions the "Book of Belial", and the ritual texts & Enochian Keys the "Book of Leviathan": collectively the Satanic Bible.

Thus from a "technical" perspective the SB is most accurately seen as a snapshot of very early Church of Satan social criticisms - this was San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury era! - combined with some inflammatory & mysterious occult filler material. Within a year or so after the book's publication, it was already obsolete: The Church was rapidly developing more sophisticated approaches to Black Magic, and 60s' social-confrontationalism was also giving way to the more cooperative, tolerant "New Age" climate of the 1970s. Nor did society seem greatly shocked by a book with such an impudent title; about the only objections to the SB in those days came from Crowley/Golden Dawn pundits who were infuriated by Anton's further piracy of their own previously-from-John-Dee pirated Enochian Keys.

So the SB enjoyed a modest, peaceful existence as a niche-curiosity more famous for its name than its actual contents until the 1980s, when a bizarre outbreak of Satanic themes in rock music and hysterical urban myths about "Satanic cult crime" combined to rocket Satan/Satanism into the public media spotlight. Both Heavy Metalloids and tabloid television alarmists needed a book to wave and yell about, and this was the one with the right title and appropriately-black cover! The SB was now a pocket guru for rebels without any other cause - when it wasn't being "found at crime scenes", of course ...

In the midst of all this mania, Anton's Redbeard plagiarism was discovered & exposed, and a number of new scholarly works on Dee's Enochian system had taken away the SB's "primitive mystery" in that area as well. Not that any of this mattered; the book had now reached the mythical status of an icon, and as such will cruise ominously onward before the eyes, if not through the brains of the Great Unwashed for many years to come.

In 1971 Anton invited me, as the senior Master of the Church of Satan, to write a new Introduction to the SB, which replaced Burton Wolfe's in all hardcover editions as well as paperbacks 1972-75. In that Introduction I compared the book to Robert Chambers' fictional The King in Yellow, "a psychopolitical work that supposedly drove its readers to madness and damnation". I'd say that the poor old Satanic Bible, at least as much to its author's surprise as anyone else's, has certainly gone a long way towards doing just that!

... one doesn't need to know all [or any] of this to respond to the book. Indeed almost all of Amazon's 427 reviews are written by people who just take it at face value, and most of these are very positive.

Back in 1971 I was trying to come up with an Introduction that would enhance the book, not get in its way, so to speak. I also wanted to strike a gong, as it were, of "metaphysical mystery": you are reading something much more than "just another occult book". It was OK, and Anton liked it, but today I think it's rather too pretentious and pompous. I would do a bit better now, but I still think the "backstory" doesn't belong in the book itself, any more than one wants to see the machinery of a movie set when watching the film. Rege Satanas!

Back in 1971 I was trying to come up with an Introduction that would enhance the book, not get in its way, so to speak. I also wanted to strike a gong, as it were, of "metaphysical mystery": you are reading something much more than "just another occult book". It was OK, and Anton liked it, but today I think it's rather too pretentious and pompous. I would do a bit better now, but I still think the "backstory" doesn't belong in the book itself, any more than one wants to see the machinery of a movie set when watching the film. Rege Satanas!

Right - but, from what I gather from reading your history of the Church of Satan (among other things), from 1966-1975 wasn't being "pretentious and pompous" partially the point of the Church of Satan? Maybe not the point, but perhaps an attraction? To get all dressed up in "lodge regalia" and say, among other things, "fuck you, world!"?

from 1966-1975 wasn't being "pretentious and pompous" partially the point of the Church of Satan? Maybe not the point, but perhaps an attraction? To get all dressed up in "lodge regalia" and say, among other things, "fuck you, world!"?

To be sure, but more in social settings begging for a whoopie cushion than in the SB Introduction.

Here is an interesting account of William Castle's involvement with Rosemary's Baby, and here are some neat tidbits about the film. After seeing Jane Fonda's spacesuit strip in Barbarella, I can't help thinking that Satan would have had a bit more fun, and taken more time, had she played Rosemary. On the other hand, it might have distracted somewhat from the mood of the movie.

As the second article mentioned, the rumor still persists that Anton LaVey played the Devil in Rosemary's Baby (who raped Rosemary [played by Mia Farrow] when she was drugged and got her pregnant with his demonic offspring).

I'm not sure if it was Anton himself who started that rumor, or others in the Church of Satan who wanted some publicity - but it certainly wasn't him in the movie. He would never have fitted into the suit for one.

I credit Jane Fonda's zero-G strip for capping off a great R&R from Vietnam in Hawaii. I don't think the movie ever made it into the rotation at the AAFES movie system in Vietnam, or if it had, it never made it to Tuy Hoa or any of the places to which I was deployed in country.

I'd have spent all of my free time watching the movie. Never would have learned to play cards. Probably died of a terminal erection.